Research and Scholarship Defined for portal: Libraries and the Academy

This essay serves to explain in some detail the definition of scholarship that the editorial board of portal: Libraries and the Academy applies when evaluating articles and assessing whether they are worthy of publication in our pages. It should be read in the larger context of the mission and purpose of portal that is defined in our front matter. I want to thank the board for its comments and formal adoption of this statement at our meeting during the 2004 annual conference of the American Library Association. At the same time, any failings of this essay are my own.

The main categories of scholarship that are the framework for our definition are the scholarships of discovery, integration, application, and teaching. This issue of portal contains a strong thematic core of articles about the utilization of problem-based learning for teaching information literacy. Thus, it focuses on the fourth type of scholarship—one that is often not taken as seriously as it should be. This thematic focus is also a departure for portal that we intend to formalize. It is the editorial board's intention that we take the opportunity that theme issues offer, from time to time, to have deeper, more extended, and critical discussions of important issues that are derived from research. In contrast, our editorial features will continue to emphasize opinion and commentary.

Introduction

Librarianship, the discipline we practice, arises from the professional training and the resultant work we do in specific institutional settings. At its base, librarianship is responsible for supplying the lifeblood of the rest of the academy—access to information for the advancement of knowledge, invention, and teaching. Since good librarianship is vital to the academic enterprise, it follows that advancing knowledge of the field of librarianship is vital to maintaining our ability to do so. It is important for portal referees to appreciate that what constitutes scholarship often comes from the context and experience of the work librarians do as individuals. Above all, librarianship is a practiced discipline.

Ernest Boyer, past president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, provides four categories of research: "Specifically, we conclude that the work of the professoriate might be thought of as having four separate but overlapping functions. These are: the scholarship of discovery; the scholarship of integration; the scholarship of application; and the scholarship of teaching."¹ These categories are discussed in some detail below. Scholarship of discovery, so-called "pure and applied research," pursues new knowledge. Scholarship of integration synthesizes and interprets knowledge to provide perspective. Scholarship of application solves problems for a larger community using knowledge from one's particular field of expertise. Scholarship of teaching and learning contributes to knowledge about how people learn. Boyer asserts the central principle that:

At the research university, original research and publication should remain the basic expectation and be considered the key criteria by which the performance of most faculty will be assessed. Where else but in our major research universities—with their intellectual and physical resources and their tradition of rigorous and untrammeled inquiry—should the bulk of research in a free society be conducted and rewarded?²

He emphasizes that the scope of research (scholarship) necessary to encompass the variety and richness of disciplines requires an "enlarging the perspective" of what scholarship means in order to comprehend its variants, to assure that it strongly supports the core mission of the academy, and to effectively nurture the diversity of the scholarly enterprise. Much of this is useful when considering the research scholarship of our profession, and it certainly applies to all of higher education not just to the "research universities," as defined by the Carnegie Classification schema.

The Scholarship of Discovery

The scholarship of discovery, at its best, contributes not only to the stock of human knowledge but also to the intellectual climate of a college or university. Not just the outcomes, but also the process, and especially the passion, give meaning to the effort. The advancement of knowledge can generate an almost palpable excitement in the life of an educational institution. ...It is tied inextricably to the...